[He gives a solemn nod. While he's played the role of countless mortals over the eons, even those mortals, for the most part, had powers. Had magic, he always had that safety net of being an ascian. Being able to flee at any given moment he'd need to. He was never truly in danger like he had during the Final Days, never truly on the same level as actual mortals.
Now he is. And everything has been taken from him. Once again, he's lost everything that's defined him, merely in a different context now.]
I was never without it, for my people were the First People. We are like gods among mortals, but in my time, we were all there was. We were the average, the normal, we were not special. All were powerful, all were immortal. We knew naught but peace and prosperity, we did not fight, we did not harm one another, we did naught but learn of our world, and improve upon it for the sake of all.
For we wished for naught more than to learn, to teach, to grow—to create a world that all might get the chance to do the same. Unfettered by wanting, by woes, by pettiness.
That is, until we were faced with a crisis. Unprecedented, terrifying. Our civilization found itself perched upon a precipice, staring into oblivion. But through our prayers and our sacrifices, we would give rise to a being so magnificent, so powerful, that He would halt our annihilation and deliver us from our doom. Zodiark, a savior that would rewrite the laws of reality so that we might survive. One worthy of gratitude and reverence, yet not all would feel so.
There were others who found fault and fear in such an entity—but it was not He that should have been feared, rather they—due to their own ignorance and foolishness. Already had we lost more than three quarters of our world's population, and by His grace did those remaining survive so that we may start anew, yet such a chance was squandered, wasted, by these naysayers who would summon forth their own to shackle and bind Him.
[He pauses a moment, before he spells out her name:]
Hydaelyn. She is the Mother I had mentioned before. Through such an act, our people became divided for the first time, and with it so did we experience war. For our Gods fought, and fought, and fought—but in the end did Zodiark get laid low. So devastating was the final blow, that not only was He divided by ten and three reflections, but all of reality and everyone in it—save three.
I am one such survivor. When we three survivors looked upon our broken brethren, foolish, frail, fleeting...we knew deepest despair. They were ignorant of their loss, of their history, left with naught but the trace remembering of an achingly familiar world, the fleeting memories of a paradise lost.
Henceforth have I toiled to revive Zodiark—to save my people, to restore reality as it should be...regardless of what it might cost me to do so. And while my loyalty to my people, my love for them has greatly spurred me forward through these endless millennia, I know well that my tempering to Zodiark's will has had its own hand in such decisions. For there is no defying the will of a being so powerful, and while we could choose our course, how we went about such work—there is no avoiding what must needs be done to restore Him in the end.
I chose to teach the mortals of what they had lost, to give them the knowledge, that by rights, is theirs. For they are fragments of my people, shattered remnants of those I had once loved and cherished, but well did I leave them with their autonomy, never did I force their hand in what they did with such technologies.
It would be absurd to say it was not by design that these gifts were bestowed upon them with the knowledge they might wreak both havoc and chaos upon the land. For it was—but it would be an untruth to claim I did not hope desperately that they would choose another course. That they might defy such a calling that I could not. Never have they, and from what I have seen of man's history unfold, I fear they never will.
[He pauses a moment to let out a controlled breath, his gaze falling to the wayside a moment as he collects himself. Talking about such is...always an emotional endeavor, something made much harder now that his tempering doesn't force him to view his toils as...something less wretched than they are. Still, he finds himself viewing mortals as lesser, and how couldn't he? They are not complete beings, they are not as they should be.
No better than a shard of a priceless masterpiece broken apart by clumsy hands, never to be of the same value of its untouched and otherwise immaculate counterpart.]
I have committed a great measure of misdeeds by the measure of mortals, but in the end what I strive for is to save them, to give them back what had been taken from them. Ignorant though they are of such loss, such ignorance begets naught but endless misery and suffering.
[The irony being that he has had a hand in a great deal of that misery and suffering, even if somewhat indirectly. Some of it utterly directly.]
no subject
Now he is. And everything has been taken from him. Once again, he's lost everything that's defined him, merely in a different context now.]
I was never without it, for my people were the First People. We are like gods among mortals, but in my time, we were all there was. We were the average, the normal, we were not special. All were powerful, all were immortal. We knew naught but peace and prosperity, we did not fight, we did not harm one another, we did naught but learn of our world, and improve upon it for the sake of all.
For we wished for naught more than to learn, to teach, to grow—to create a world that all might get the chance to do the same. Unfettered by wanting, by woes, by pettiness.
That is, until we were faced with a crisis. Unprecedented, terrifying. Our civilization found itself perched upon a precipice, staring into oblivion. But through our prayers and our sacrifices, we would give rise to a being so magnificent, so powerful, that He would halt our annihilation and deliver us from our doom. Zodiark, a savior that would rewrite the laws of reality so that we might survive. One worthy of gratitude and reverence, yet not all would feel so.
There were others who found fault and fear in such an entity—but it was not He that should have been feared, rather they—due to their own ignorance and foolishness. Already had we lost more than three quarters of our world's population, and by His grace did those remaining survive so that we may start anew, yet such a chance was squandered, wasted, by these naysayers who would summon forth their own to shackle and bind Him.
[He pauses a moment, before he spells out her name:]
Hydaelyn. She is the Mother I had mentioned before. Through such an act, our people became divided for the first time, and with it so did we experience war. For our Gods fought, and fought, and fought—but in the end did Zodiark get laid low. So devastating was the final blow, that not only was He divided by ten and three reflections, but all of reality and everyone in it—save three.
I am one such survivor. When we three survivors looked upon our broken brethren, foolish, frail, fleeting...we knew deepest despair. They were ignorant of their loss, of their history, left with naught but the trace remembering of an achingly familiar world, the fleeting memories of a paradise lost.
Henceforth have I toiled to revive Zodiark—to save my people, to restore reality as it should be...regardless of what it might cost me to do so. And while my loyalty to my people, my love for them has greatly spurred me forward through these endless millennia, I know well that my tempering to Zodiark's will has had its own hand in such decisions. For there is no defying the will of a being so powerful, and while we could choose our course, how we went about such work—there is no avoiding what must needs be done to restore Him in the end.
I chose to teach the mortals of what they had lost, to give them the knowledge, that by rights, is theirs. For they are fragments of my people, shattered remnants of those I had once loved and cherished, but well did I leave them with their autonomy, never did I force their hand in what they did with such technologies.
It would be absurd to say it was not by design that these gifts were bestowed upon them with the knowledge they might wreak both havoc and chaos upon the land. For it was—but it would be an untruth to claim I did not hope desperately that they would choose another course. That they might defy such a calling that I could not. Never have they, and from what I have seen of man's history unfold, I fear they never will.
[He pauses a moment to let out a controlled breath, his gaze falling to the wayside a moment as he collects himself. Talking about such is...always an emotional endeavor, something made much harder now that his tempering doesn't force him to view his toils as...something less wretched than they are. Still, he finds himself viewing mortals as lesser, and how couldn't he? They are not complete beings, they are not as they should be.
No better than a shard of a priceless masterpiece broken apart by clumsy hands, never to be of the same value of its untouched and otherwise immaculate counterpart.]
I have committed a great measure of misdeeds by the measure of mortals, but in the end what I strive for is to save them, to give them back what had been taken from them. Ignorant though they are of such loss, such ignorance begets naught but endless misery and suffering.
[The irony being that he has had a hand in a great deal of that misery and suffering, even if somewhat indirectly. Some of it utterly directly.]